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Place-Making As Contemplative Practice, Douglas E. Christie

Theological Studies Faculty Works

In an age of chronic and widespread displacement, the work of place-making—the discovery and cultivation of a sense of place—has gained new significance and meaning. In this essay, I propose to consider how place-making can be understood as a form of contemplative practice. Anthropologist Keith Basso describes place-making as a work of “retrospective world-building” that enables a person or community to see a place in all its richness and complexity and hold that place in the imagination. Following the work of photographer Robert Adams, I want to suggest that what makes this work contemplative in character is the integration and …